That Krazy Korean: DANCOM

There aren’t many things to break the monotony of everyday life here so you tend to gravitate to things that are out of the norm. That’s what I did when I signed up for the DANCOM march back in the middle of October. What is a DANCOM march you ask? Well, it’s a 20km road march put on by the Danish Army (who even knew they had an army?) that is usually done in a deployed area. The briefing before the start of the march informed us that it has three purposes:

1) Road marching is a basic military skill that we all need to be proficient on (but is considered by most not to be the most “fun” thing to do on a deployment).

2) It helps to bring people from different nations and branches of service together by giving them a social outlet (similar to a volksmarch).

3) It helps to raise money for charity (although some of us had a sinking suspicion that it went to their beer fund).

In years past they marched through the IZ to some cool landmarks, but due to security, we had to do “laps”, 5 of them actually, around the embassy grounds. With over 400 participants, it was sure to be a social event. Since all of the captains I knew were smart enough not to waste their one day sleeping in on an epic trek, I ended up just meeting my old boss at the start line and hung with him and his LTC buddies for the first lap. After that, I picked up the pace and tried to finish in under my goal time of 3 hours.

Now some folks know that I like being outside, which is one of the reasons I like hiking so much. I also like the morning time because you get to witness the birth of a new day. So, a 4:30am wake up for a 12 mile walk seemed right up my alley, right? I thought so. What started out as a wonderful walk through the cool morning air turned into a hobbling limp at lap 5. The limp was a result of the growing blisters in my boots. It wasn’t until after 3 hours I stopped, collected my certificate of completion and got back to my trailer that I realized that I had did a number on the dogs because once the boots came off, they weren’t going to go back on without a fight.

This isn’t the first run in I’ve had with blisters. Back in basic I had a medic follow me around providing me a steady stream of bandages and antibiotics to fight the infection I received from a ruptured blister. I also got pulled off my short jaunt along the AT because I had not properly broken in a pair of hiking boots before I decided to go on a 150 mile trek across the Shenandoah Valley with Alissa. With all of this valuable experience, one would think that I’d learn by doing smart things like pre-taping my feet, getting smarter socks and maybe even doing a few shorter walks to toughen up my feet. However, that is assuming that I’m not stubborn or hard headed (which would not be an accurate assumption).

So, thanks to ample amounts of drugs, tape and moleskin, I’m still mobile, although I do appear to be hobbling around like a gimp. I refuse to wear the “soft shoe” profile because there is no better way to stick out as the weak target in the herd of digital camouflage than donning a pair of bright white/blue running shoes. I switched to my Danner boots which are unauthorized to wear due to their sneaker like appearance, but they are less conspicuous.

Despite my temporary handicap brought about by my stupidity, morale is much better than it has been in a long time. I got to go for a walk during my favorite part of the day, talk to some awesome people (one of which was my girlfriend via cell phone) and got some much needed endurance exercise in. I feel like a new man... with used feet.